Month: August 2016

The king is dead, long live the king. Even staunch advocates of the “three and out” Jose Mourinho conspiracy would have been hard pushed to predict his 2015-16 adventure. Fresh from a title win, the warning signs arrived quickly as in the first game of their title defence, Swansea managed to repeatedly shred Chelsea’s back line, recorded an eyebrow raising ten shots on target and came away from the bridge with a 2-2 draw, arguably unlucky not to get more. Things then proceeded to get worse and they weren’t unlucky, just in disarray and by the time Mourinho finally collected his P45, they had lost nine of 16 and sat 16th. That he’d lost nine league matches in the previous two seasons put together showed quite how remarkable this run was. So friendly Dutch uncle Guus Hiddink was drafted in to hold the fort and the team coasted through half a season, finally finding itself idly marooned in tenth. Clearly superior than all below, and a few above, but entirely handicapped by their ludicrous autumn run and the Mourinho fug. Conte A marketplace in which the better candidates were either happily employed elsewhere or had already been involved at Chelsea meant that the search for a new Chelsea coach this summer was always going to be tricky. Thankfully for them, coming the the end of a natural cycle as Italian national coach was Antonio Conte, and the lu(c)re was strong enough for him to be enticed. Flavio Fusi is our resident Italian football expert here at StatsBomb, so I asked him for some comment about Conte’s style and potential in the English game: When Conte signed for Juventus he was considered a 4-2-4 “integralist”: that was the system he fielded at Bari and Siena and everyone thought he would implement the same system with the Bianconeri, regardless of personnel. The arrivals of Stephan Lichtsteiner, Emanuele Giaccherini and Eljero Elia reinforced this opinion, but after the first few games, Conte realized that a powerhouse like Vidal, signed from Leverkusen, could not be just the reserve of Pirlo and Marchisio. Therefore, he decided to put aside “his” 4-2-4 in favour of a 4-3-3, alternatively benching one of Krasić, Elia and Giaccherini with the Chilean starting alongside the two Italian midfielders. Juve’s new formation was much more efficient: the pressing and counterpressing displayed at the beginning of the season benefited the new midfield structure, and featured the tackling-machine Vidal in the middle of the pitch. However, Juve’s system of play under Conte was not yet settled: in late November 2011, Marchisio was banned and the Italian manager fielded his team in a 3-5-2 to counter Mazzarri’s Napoli 3-4-3. That night at San Paolo the match ended in a pyrotechnical 3-3, but above all, the system that made Conte famous in the second part of his career was defined. This entire premise is to illustrate how flexible Conte can be and how he is a coach who tries to nurture the talent of the footballers at his disposal by adapting his system of play to maximize their output. Also, his spell at the helm of the Italian National team and Chelsea’s preseason friendlies, in which he employed 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2/4-2-4 and 4-3-3, have demonstrated his adaptability. These traits explain why, except for the purchases of Batshuayi and Kanté and the sale of Djilobodji, the new Chelsea gaffer is yet to heavily operate in the transfer market. So far he has experimented both in terms of tactics and personnel, and after the win against AC Milan, Conte himself told Chelsea TV "I think this match told me a lot about the players who [we will] keep and who can go on loan or we can sell”. We will likely see him more active in the last few weeks of the transfer window, also considering how large the Blues roster is (on paper). There are many players whose permanence at Stamford Bridge is in doubt but there are three players in particular I would like to see under Conte’s guidance: Oscar, Kenedy and Cuadrado. I am not sure if he could succeed in a two-man midfield (Conte tried him in a double pivot together with Matic), but I think Oscar could transition in an interesting no.8. He has a high enough work-rate and the dynamism to play in that role (especially if compared to Fabregas) and his runs could be more effective starting in a deeper position, so even if Conte abolishes the attacking midfielder from the team, the Brazilian could still retain his place in the starting XI. Another atypical Brazilian who Conte could like is Kenedy. An offensive player who played as leftback under Hiddink recording decent defensive numbers, Kenedy would learn a lot under Conte and his versatility and athleticism, together with a nice technique, could come handy, especially with tactics that are still a work in progress. Conte likes these kind of players (I think of Pepe, Giaccherini and Florenzi) and Kenedy seems one of the few wingers who could adapt to an eventual 3-5-2. Finally yet importantly, Conte used to daydream of Cuadrado at Juve and apparently, the Bianconeri board failing to purchase him was one of the reasons he left. At 28 Cuadrado is in the prime of his career and last year led Serie A with 3.74 succesful dribbles per 90, so I can’t see why he should get rid of the Colombian, who surely deserves another chance in the Premier L eague after playing less than 350 minutes under Mourinho. The transition of last year's Chelsea to Conte’s Chelsea has been and will be gradual, even if from preseason we have seen a team that tends to defend fairly deep, staying both vertically and horizontally compact and looks to attack and counterattack with width and speed, without extended spells of possession. This opens the question on how Chelsea may cope against the many opponents that would likely leave them the ball in the PL, but also Conte’s Juve used to play like this, counting on counterpressing and players' work-rate to regain as many new possessions as possible (in this scenario Kanté is really a perfect fit). Conte has already proven himself to be a world-class coach and I can see him succeed in the Premier League, too. He is a “natural born winner” and even if there will be a physiological settling in period, I am pretty sure he will have a great impact on English football this season. Transfers Michy Batshuayi arrives for a decent fee from Olimpique de Marseille after putting up good numbers across two seasons there. He’s a three shot a game man who recorded a rough expected goal volume of about half a goal a game in a moderate team, and at 22 happily profiles as one of the better young forwards who was available this summer. Maybe he lacks the stellar profile that Diego Costa or Fernando Torres brought on their arrival, but as the mixed return of those players have shown, the fee or the reputation don’t always guarantee results in line with preconceptions. Batshuayi is good, and hopefully gets decent chances to show it. The overarching emphasis that Conte might bring seems to be reflected by two transfers, one in and one out. Baba Rahman departed quickly claiming that his coach told him he wanted his team to be defensive and he didn’t fit the bill and N’Golo Kante arrived for another big fee from Leicester. A twin-engined destroyer and attack starter, Kante’s arrival creates an interesting conundrum regarding the future and potential positioning of both Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic. Nobody in the league made more tackles or interceptions than Kante last year and it will be interesting to see how his passing holds up with Chelsea likely to spend a deal of time in possession and dominating, no matter how cautious their manager’s philosophy demands them to be. But again, it’s a transfer that’s hard to criticise. Beyond that so far, it’s been quiet. The defence is still aging and could probably do with reinforcement, indeed it seems inconceivable that they will not sign any defenders between here and the window closing but generally we are left looking at much the same team that both won the 2014-15 title and imploded the season after. Much has been made of Chelsea's lack of European football this season, and it will certainly enable Conte to field his strongest team week in, week out. The identity of this team is an interesting conundrum given that Chelsea's full squad including a youth and loan army is vast and hugely talented. Conte may feel that he can pick and choose from this talent pool and it seems sure that there will be plenty more player trading to come, with loans out likely prevalent. 38 league games and a few cup fixtures will not be enough to sate the entire squad. Metrics One of the strange things about Chelsea’s season was the split in metrics between the first half and second half of the season barely differed. In going 5-5-9 through the first half they were about a 50% shots team, so about par. In stemming the flow and going 7-9-3 in the second half, they were, well, a 50% shots team. Whether falling apart under Jose or holidaying under Guus, they didn’t manage to reliably create shot volume and only a strong conversion run during the second half (similar to that which their opponents enjoyed during the first half) enabled them to hand off their opposition. By season’s end expected goals ranked them around Europa League levels and that divergence from a pure shot analysis can be explained by a defensive end that allowed opponents to shoot from the 4th furthest distance in the league, and a reasonably high mean expected goal rate per shot for (also 4th). These are only peeks at the team’s efficiencies, but suggest that at least in part, there are aspects of play that Conte can build upon to mount a top four challenge. Player wise, 2015-16 was tough for a few. From 2014-15 Diego Costa lost around 0.2 per 90 off both his expected and real goal and assist rates, Eden Hazard an eye-watering 0.35 off both too. Oscar flitted in and out of the team a bit and despite a solid expected rate (pretty much consistent year on year, lost a ton in reality (minus 0.3 per 90), so tough break for him while Fabregas suffered similarly, 0.1 per 90 off his expected rate, 0.4 in reality. Willian had a small uptick, which allied with some free kick success in this company made it look like he was ripping things up. In reality, he did okay. When your entire attacking corps runs cold together, it’s probably more than just bad luck, so systemically, something about the way Chelsea fitted together was amiss, and only really lightly suggested it could be retrieved. Hazard's decline was probably the greatest mystery. He went from being arguably the most dangerous attacker in the league to a neutered shadow. As time went on it seemed possible that he was carrying an injury and indeed, the Hazard that returned in late season and played in the Euros looked far sharper than the version that laboured through the autumn. In his general play, much was similar, right up until he hit the edge of the box, from there his impact vanished. Here we can see the upshot of this by comparing his last two seasons of chance creation: Reputation wise, Fabragas and Matic as a midfield duo suffered significantly last year, with opposition teams seemingly able to waltz past them and land quickly onto Chelsea's centre backs, possibly the last thing that could have been predicted and the first thing that needs remedying. Again Kante is the perfect fix here but it will be interesting if Fabregas still retains a role having seen his dribbled past numbers increase again (up from around two per game to two and a half), or if much like Hiddink, Conte redeploys Jon Obi Mikel.He may well place creativity elsewhere. To the top four? Chelsea lost 37 points season on season from 2014-15 to 2015-16. Considering that Leicester added 40 points we can see how much of an unlikely and unexpected turnaround their demise was. They are likely to need to add a similar volume of points back on to compete for the title and even without European football, that is a huge ask.  As another reference, Liverpool added 23 points from 2012-13 to the Luis Suarez fuelled title bid of 2013-14 and you feel that Chelsea would need a player to erupt in a similar fashion to Suarez in that season in order to get anywhere beyond just being in the top four mix. But this just simply isn't Conte's manner. He won Serie A in 2011-12 going undefeated, drawing 15 games and his top scorer landed ten goals. The next season saw more wins (27), but more defeats too (5) and again his top scorer managed ten. Finally in 2013-14 his team went a ludicrous 33-3-2 and he finally had a goalscorer in Tevez who landed nineteen but the real driver for this positive work was on the defensive side--20 goals conceded, then 23 then 24. Indeed, if we look at the last six seasons across the big five European leagues, his three Juventus seasons all figure in the top ten as teams that limited their opposition to the furthest shots, and his final Juve team in 2013-14 ranks second only to Pep Guardiola's first Bayern season in a measure of non-centrality of opposition shots. There is no way Conte doesn't fix defense first and the squad has the talent and versatility to adjust to style changes but the message will need to be learned quickly. A pragmatic view would suggest that this is a season to rebuild. No English team is likely to dominate like Juventus have in Italy this decade and merely positioning a team among contenders is a tricky enough feat in itself. Chelsea have so much to find to even get back into the mix that the top four would be a solid return. Of course, no Chelsea manager ever has the top four as their target and it is likely a bare minimum, to finish outside would once more draw pressure. It is going to be hard though: they need to improve on last season in nearly every area on the pitch and move forward significantly in shot and goal creation at both ends. Conte is a shrewd appointment and another welcome addition to the league but title talk appears fanciful. Getting the Chelsea ship back on an even keel is imperative and this defence first outlook will give him the perfect base to bounce back into the hunt for Champions League positions. Whether he makes it will define his future. ________________   Check out all our other previews here More to come all week

A top 7 finish for the first time since 2001-02, a record points tally in the Premier League era, home to one of the best players in the league whose stock rose even higher at Euro 16. There were quite a few things to celebrate last season for West Ham fans, and we haven't even mentioned the brand new 55,000 Olympic Stadium practically gift wrapped to them for this season and beyond. It was a common rhetoric that as a result, this could be the start of an ascension that in no time would take the club to the heights that the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool currently reside. And yet, it's close to the start of the season and West Ham look almost as incomplete a puzzle as they were at season's end. Which is a bit confusing seeing as their numbers would've indicated that perhaps some things could've been restructured. The Numbers: Remember when Swansea in 2014-15 finished 8th and lots of analysts were worried that they lucked into a spot in the table because lots of variance went their way? Well West Ham were a better version of that Swansea team but they too benefited from lots of variance, whether it be statistical or just the fact that Liverpool and Chelsea had shocking seasons. In some ways it's also kind of like the 2014-15 Tottenham side that finished 5th despite real sign of overachieving, but in their case the next season they just suddenly became a dominant team. Meanwhile Swansea went the opposite and simply returned to being a generic lower mid-table side. So are West Ham going to follow the Swansea route or the Tottenham route? Who knows really. West Ham were a break even team in terms of shots at around 52%, which is fine enough. Adrian more and more is becoming a goalkeeper who can save your team 2-4 goals per season, which is valuable in of itself. Dimitri Payet was awesome last season as a creator and Andy Carroll played his best season in years with a 0.5 non penalty goals p90 rate which outstripped his xG p90 rate of 0.39 (though I guess Diafra Sakho having a 0.41 xG p90 rate and a 0.28 NPG p90 sort of evened things out). But running very simple regression analysis showed West Ham overachieving their points tally by quite a bit. I roughly found their talent level to be around 54-56 points which would've had them finishing in 8th-9th place and takes some of the shine off of last season. Stuff like this as well scream an eventual return to the mean: "But we were only four points off 4th place" ­- Some West Ham Fan out there Technically yes, you are right. West Ham were rather close to being in the Champions League. I literally can't refute that statement. But let's be real here; the table can lie quite a bit. The element of luck is something that fans don't want to really acknowledge because it's not really that fun a concept. It's easier to praise a team on a hot streak for intangibles that nine times out of ten don't actually exist. West Ham were 3rd in the league after 10 games despite playing fairly below average stuff because they led games early on especially against the bigger clubs away and just sat back absorbing pressure, as evidence by them finishing 5th in minutes played in the lead. Now I don't want to totally disregard the legitimate improvement West Ham showed towards the end of the season, because they were certainly better as they became the early season version of Leicester where games featured lots of shots at both ends, beating teams by volume more so than efficiency. Some of their games towards season's end were downright wacky and it contributed to West Ham matches featuring on average a league high 28.6 shots per game. So an average team with variance going their way would probably be the best way to describe 2015-16 West Ham. But hey, lots of PL TV money coming in and a brand new stadium to entice players who couldn't get gigs at higher up clubs. This must've meant that West Ham would really push strong and find certain targets to help them consolidate their standings as an upper tier PL club and not totally waste Dimitri Payet's remaining glory year(s). Well... Transfers in: Manuel Lanzini (permanent deal), Sofiane Feghouli (Free), Andre Ayew Transfers Out: James Tomkins I mean it could be worse. First off it was a bit humorous to see West Ham linked to numerous strikers during the transfer window. Whether it be Alexandre Lacazette, Michy Batshuayi or even the most recent in Wissam Ben Yedder who's off to Sevilla. Who knows how far they went with each pursuit but the end result was almost a negative on two fronts. One was that they came up empty with said strikers, the other was that it allegedly upset Diafra Sakho to the point where he demanded a transfer and nearly got a move onto West Brom to be part of Tony Pulis' "Theater of Dreams" before complications halted the move. Assuming there's no lingering issues with that, West Ham still have a decent mid tier PL striker to use but they still could very well do with another one. Now as a Marseille fan, I can totally appreciate West Ham reuniting two key members of the 2014/15 side that were one of the most fun teams in Europe. Andre Ayew has been pretty good over the years as a Swiss army knife type of player, even playing spot minutes as a central midfielder. But he's going to be 27 in December and considering he started playing in Ligue 1 at age 18-19, perhaps his prime will cut off quicker than the typical winger. He makes West Ham better if only because he's better than Lanzini, but at £20M it's kind of a lukewarm move for a team with fairly deep pockets and European football to offer. There were other rather glaring holes with the squad and the need for another LB has become crucial with Aaron Creswell being on the shelf for around four months. Jordan Amavi would be an intriguing fit, assuming he's back to 100% capability. West Ham could also stand to have a few more central midfielders on the squad. Joe Allen showed himself to be a really good counter pressing midfielder under Jurgen Klopp and also had a fine enough showing at Euro 16. Allen leaving perhaps wasn't shocking, the fact that he went to Stoke at only £13M was. Considering the crazy fees going on domestically, there are worse moves to make than paying that transfer fee for him. Idrissa Gueye as well would've been a very nice value play. Let's put on the Ligue 1 fanboy hat once again: he was good at Lille and had all the attributes for a successful move abroad. Funny enough, he was rated by some as a better player in France than N'Golo Kante. Southampton wanted him when Aston Villa beat them to the punch. Yes he was part of that awful Villa side, but a £7.2M release clause is like peanuts in this market. At ~£20M, West Ham could've had two prime age central midfielders who correspond fairly well age wise with Payet. There's still time obviously for West Ham to fix this up, and getting Feghouli on a free is a nice little move on the fringes but as currently constructed and with the holes in their squad, even with the Ayew signing there's still considerable cracks to paper over. Conclusion: Hey let's play a game called "Are West Ham Better than Team X": Are West Ham Better than any of the North London or Manchester Clubs? Probably not. Are West Ham better than Chelsea/Liverpool? Probably not. Are West Ham better than any of Leicester/Southampton/Everton/Stoke? Maybe. That seems fair enough that West Ham could beat out 1-2 of those teams. Southampton are going through some retooling while Stoke have this weird Frakenstein collection of talent. But it also could be argued that they could finish worse off than all of them. The early over/under lines are out for the PL and West Ham are projected to finish between 54-55 points which isn't too bad a projection considering their underlying numbers suggested their talent level being around there. https://twitter.com/ObjectiveFooty/status/760090550636781568 But I can't help but feel that even reaching that target would be an accomplishment for them with what they've got currently. Even putting variance aside; they got a peak season out of Payet in his late 20's and Carroll had as good a season as you could probably ask out of him. Just looking at their talent alone,  their attack really overachieved compared to what was expected and it's very plausible their goal totals shrink by 10-15 goals for the reasons that already been outlined. Let's say West Ham score 50 goals this season, do they have the personnel to be an above average defensive unit? I'm skeptical of that outside their goalkeeping. If anything, this season could be the start of truly figuring out just how good Slaven Bilic is as a manager. We really don't know much about him still and perhaps he was just a guy who had luck go his way and that was the best it'll get. Or, he might be closer to a Mauricio Pochettino or even some of Sam Allardyce's teams back in the day where they could make the sum better than the individual parts. In fairness, Pochettino also showed more evidence that he had a chance at being a top manager with his splendid work at Southampton. Regardless, after a successful first season, Bilic's stock is white hot but a pedestrian mid table finish in 2016-17 would temper enthusiasm. It will help us further determine if he's more of the real deal or just a Croatian Mark Hughes. Prediction: 10th place. Bilic's approval rating begins to drop while stronger murmurs emerge of a possible Payet transfer. Meanwhile somewhere Sam Allardyce and his evil twin Sam Allardici chuckle to themselves.

The Past

Once Everton has touched you, nothing will be the same. Nothing, of course, except the reliable engine of hope and disappointment that has driven us backwards, forwards, sideways, and finally backwards again since the 80s. I should be more excited about this season: Roberto Martinez is gone! His style of football flew too close to the sun, and his wings (phenomenal, world-class wings) turned out to be held together by mere bullshit. We have our billionaire! No more mortgaging our future, selling our stars, lowering our ambitions...

I miss Moyes. I was brought up in the post-Kendall era of relegation battles and dodgy loans - I miss being the best of the rest. We're in a league now in which at least one of Guardiola, Conte, Mourinho, Wenger, Klopp or Pochettino have the fight of their lives to scrape anything better than 6th. When Moyes left on his three-year mission to flush his reputation far enough down the toilet that it could stick to Aston Villa or Sunderland, we had options. Ralf Rangnick was right there, in the room, being interviewed. No manager available to us at that time could have better embodied the school of soccer science, and given us a tactical head start in a post Tiki-Taka world. Instead we hired the guy that got relegated but twatted us in the cup. For a brief time memories of Moyes kept our defence from collapsing, before we faded into a bottom-half team, a patchy, wilting Christmas tree with some inexplicably shiny baubles.

How ambitious we were to reject £40m for Stones! Only twelve months before, we had missed the Champions League by a whisker! It's time to end the hubris. We never matched Moyes' on-pitch solidity with a reliable, long-term, financially secure plan off it. Now our billionaire has arrived, it seems too late to really differentiate ourselves, in a world with vast TV money and so many competitive teams. But I'm reassured by the fact that we haven't immediately had a Robinho moment - it implies we're willing to actually put in the proper work.

The Management

And so it is that we welcome Ronald Koeman to the helm. The Dutch Moyes is probably exactly what we need. At the very least, his appearances in post-friendly interviews have been hugely refreshing - a spade is once more a spade, and not a phenomenal, world-class ground-penetrating system. Two things mystify me, though: one that he was our first and only managerial target (if you take that claim at face value) and two that we have thrown enormous amounts of money at him between his contract and the compensation to Southampton. If we were willing to throw money around, why not a more ambitious choice? Why not offer someone like Roger Schmidt silly money?

Elsewhere in the org chart, the arrival of Steve Walsh as Director of Football may signal a more long-term approach to recruitment. Whether or not he was the man who single-handedly sniffed out Riyad Mahrez, or who personally sorted the spreadsheet by tackles per game to find N'Golo Kanté, he's at least another grown-up in the room if a manager ever embarks on another passion project like Oumar Niasse. Previous Leicester target Idrissa Gueye has since arrived to patch the holes in our midfield, so that at least implies Walsh has smuggled out a USB drive with the "TOP SECRET ANALYTICS.xlsx" file that won Leicester the title last season.

When Martinez arrived, much was made of his attempts to remodel the club from top to bottom, to ensure the same style of play was being taught at every level (which presumably means nobody has practiced a set piece at the club for three years). You have to then wonder just how much disruption is caused by an outgoing manager with such a singular vision. Despite the fancy DoF title, Walsh's background is as a scout, it seems unlikely that he is directing our football or training ground operations to any great degree. Given that he's probably not giving the club much continuity above and beyond our current manager, why not just call him Head Scout?

The Money

Never before has it been so easy to call yourself a billionaire in the EPL. The TV money can basically pay for everything now, and if not, we're probably clearing £100m for Stones and Lukaku. If Farhad Moshiri, deep in his heart, never intends to give Everton any more money than his initial investment, it will be a very long time before anyone notices. So I would suggest we don't get ahead of ourselves and make any assumptions about our new status. Maybe the stadium talks will move forward, and maybe future windows will feature splashier forays into the market, but I'd much rather the club quietly upgrade our infrastructure (perhaps buying some of it back from the council would be a start) and plan for the future. Either way, in Moshiri we appear to have a sensible, unemotional driver at the wheel (or at least taking up 49.9% of the car and telling the driver where to go, you know how metaphors work), and billions or not, he seems to want his money spent sensibly. It's entirely possible that 21st Club's involvement during the takeover will result in better, more objective decision making throughout the club at some point in the future.

The Squad

Everton have huge problems in the middle. Our defence has been bad, and has had no protection from central midfield. Gareth Barry moved the ball forwards nicely enough, but the weight of his enormous contract on those aging legs made him a liability going the other way. James McCarthy doesn't have much more defensive output than Barry, and very little of his passing. Idrissa Gueye comes into the team having made as many interceptions per 90 (possession adjusted) as McCarthy and Barry combined (3.32 versus 1.76 + 1.60), but will he single-handedly stop the succession of high-quality shots making it through to our goal?

 

 

With Stones likely to leave close to the opening day of the season (with the possibility of the error-prone Ashley Williams replacing him), and no rumours of a true goalkeeping upgrade, the entire pipeline from our midfield to our goal seems shaky, and even if you lay all of the blame with Martinez's system (which you should not), there hasn't been a huge amount of time to drill the team. Pre-season games haven't played out so differently from the Martinez-era - exciting attacking football, but too easy to penetrate at the other end, and still utter chaos when the ball is in the air.

In the game of 'Whose Knees Give Way First?' it appears that Mo Besic has been outlasted by Darron Gibson. It's shame that it looks like we'll never get a full season out of the Bosnian try-hard, he adds a slightly different, more direct dimension to our passing which certainly felt missing in monotonic system of the past couple of seasons. The same is true of Gibson's style, somehow earning him a two-year contract extension despite spending part of last year shoeless, on the sauce, and mowing down cyclists in his Nissan Skyline. It certainly seems that we have no long-term succession plan for Gareth Barry. Look at the average gain towards to opposition goal that our players made last year:

 

Player	Average Gain
Joel Robles	22.15
Tim Howard	20.28
Jonjoe Kenny	8.92
Callum Connolly	6.0
John Stones	5.76
Phil Jagielka	4.97
Matthew Pennington	4.8
Ramiro Funes Mori	4.65
Seamus Coleman	3.86
Gerard Deulofeu	3.65
Leighton Baines	3.18
Bryan Oviedo	2.97
Gareth Barry	2.85
Kieran Dowell	2.16
Darron Gibson	1.75
Tyias Browning	1.63
Steven Pienaar	0.75
Aaron Lennon	0.58
Brendan Galloway	0.43
Muhamed Besic	0.37
Tony Hibbert	-0.04
James McCarthy	-0.55
Tom Cleverley	-0.65
Tom Davies	-1.0
Ross Barkley	-1.06
Kevin Mirallas	-1.79
Oumar Niasse	-1.88
Arouna Koné	-2.12
Steven Naismith	-2.66
Romelu Lukaku	-3.22
Leon Osman	-3.33

 

Compare Barry to McCarthy and Barkley to Deulofeu - outside of build up from the back, we don't have too many adventurous players, and Besic and Gibson only just manage to average a positive score. It's not all bad news going forward though. While we awaited Romelu Lukaku's return from the Euros, Koeman opted for Deulofeu through the middle in pre-season, and he looked bright and dangerous. Here's how he looked last year:

 

I do not know what physical or psychological flaws the boy has that cause him to be benched by Christmas each year, but I genuinely believe he's the only truly magical player that we have. As much as Aaron Lennon proved productive last year, his main achievement was to steal minutes from the player who perhaps needed them most. While his shot numbers as a winger last year weren't great (basically a shot every other game), his assists per 90 were second only to Özil: 0.42 to the German platter-server's 0.45, albeit from radically different xA numbers. Deulofeu struck gold from his 0.33 xA per 90, Arsenal's conversion rate almost halved Özil's expected assist total of 0.7 per 90. That's worth keeping an eye on, but either way his overall scoring therefore adds up to basically the same as Lukaku's (0.55 to 0.58). Obviously that's a testament to the partnership as much as anything, but Deulofeu has combined well with Mirallas up front in pre-season. I hope we see much more of him this season, wherever on the pitch he ends up. It would be a tragedy if he suffered the same fate as Dusan Tadic at Southampton, who Koeman often seemed reluctant to field despite his talent.

If Lukaku's rumoured return to Chelsea goes ahead, we'll be losing the most reliable goal-scorer Everton have seen for decades. I don't truly know what style of football would suit the still-young Belgian, but it never felt we were particularly built around him, if only because it might have occurred to another team to stop making him look so clumsy with his back to goal. If he leaves we'll certainly miss his raw output, but I don't believe he's tactically irreplaceable, especially in an attack built around Deulofeu, if such a thing is possible.

And finally we have Ross Barkley. Did he make The Leap, or did he stumble again? Certainly, the same old habits held firm: the runs that went nowhere; the complete lack of recovery running; the terrible decisions. But he began to show some sings of actual output last season, ending with 0.33 NPGA90. I would accept anything approaching Stones-level money for him in a heartbeat, but it's entirely possible that slowly but surely he could one day, with the right training, stop being the most infuriating player on the team.

 

The Future

As grumpy as all this undoubtedly sounds, Everton are today in the best shape they've been since my family moved to Winsford in 1987 and I looked at the nearest clubs in the league table, pointed, and said 'that one'. Koeman isn't the most exciting possible appointment, but he's fine. We haven't gone out and made a statement in the transfer market, but too often that statement just ends up being "we're idiots with no sense and lots of money" anyway. It is hard to accept that there is no short term plan to transform this squad into a Top 4 one, but right now we just need to prove that it's a top half one, and build a future from there.

Of course if by the first day of the season we've spent £200m and all this is rubbish, then I'm well up for that too.   ___________________

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Leicester City won the Premier League title? That actually happened. It's been around three months since Leicester clinched the title and I still can't believe it. We live in a world where Leicester are going to host Champions League matches and be seeded into pot 1, which is mind boggling on so many levels. The Liverpool run of 2013-14 was surprising but at least it could be partly explained by simply saying Luis Suarez was awesome and everyone else just kind of fell into their natural place. You really can't do the same thing with Leicester even if we mention all the big teams who disappointed last season. The PL is a different place from where we last left it in May. The Manchester clubs have new high profile managers and are spending loads of money, and maybe this time more sensibly. Chelsea are retooling under Antonio Conte's leadership and making solid new additions. Arsenal might be adding more high profiled players to their squad and Liverpool are now going to have a full season under Jurgen Klopp. The law of averages would dictate that Leicester will fall into a group alongside the likes of Everton and Southampton where scrapping for 7th place is the highest ceiling, but why rule them out? Maybe they have one more trick up their sleeve that could somehow see them contend once more for the CL? Who knows. So that's where we're at with Leicester. They completed the greatest title shock in the history of modern football and it's generally established by most that the best they could probably do is a potential Europa League spot. It's a weird acceptance  if you support them but that's looking like the most likely scenario. Plus given just how unlikely their achievement was, the club probably bought themselves so much goodwill with their fan base that finishing mid-table over the next few seasons would be just fine. The Numbers: I think you guys know the gambit by now: sky high conversion rates on both ends of the pitch which were rare for a team without the glut of talent that the likes of Manchester City have had, alongside both shot and xG numbers which were mostly pretty decent, When it came to generating big chances, they were quite proficient at it but it was still nothing that resembled a traditional title winner. Since the 2009-10 season, Leicester's scoring% ranked the 6th highest during that time span and their save% 16th highest. Even the most optimistic of Leicester fans would concede that won't happen again. A penalty differential of +9 is the second best mark that I could find on record in the PL over the last decade, with only Chelsea from 2012-13 beating it. There was a stretch of games in the second half of the season where it felt like opponents couldn't buy a goal: https://twitter.com/jair1970/status/719129273282469888 Add that all into a pot alongside great injury luck, no European football and that's a potent blend that somehow went from 5000-1 odds to win the title. Leicester were a fine enough team if you remove the crazy variance going their way and they did improve as the season went on but there's still little to suggest that they could replicate much of this and make another go at a CL spot. Even the counter attacks and speed data which made them famous last season could stand to decline substantially as teams work them out more (just ask Brendan Rodgers after the 2013-14 season). Looking at simple regression to estimate a team talent level, the absolute best case scenario I could make was Leicester were around a 70 point team, so basically the 3rd best team in the league behind the North London clubs. Leicester's best hope for repeating another shock might have to be doing what Tottenham did under Pochettino between 2014-16 and Manchester City under Mancini between 2010-12 and just improving substantially from a team that were around break even in shot numbers to around the 60-65% range that's normally been for PL contenders. Does grandpa Ranieri have that still in him? Even when Man City improved as a team in 2011-12, they had the benefit of buying Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri to kick them up to title contention. Ranieri is a realist and he knows that it will be tough. Transfers One of the things suggested as Leicester were completing their shock season was because of the giant windfall of PL TV money and CL money, they could potentially fight off bigger clubs trying to poach their stars and even add to the squad to combat for more games next season and an overall tougher league to compete in. So far that rhetoric has kind of been true. Currently as it stands, Leicester have only lost Kante to Chelsea and while the reports suggesting Mahrez would follow suit to Arsenal have died down, it's still a bit uncertain. It's somewhat amusing that Vardy could be the only player of the trio to stay after his dalliance with Arsenal given at his age, he stands to lose out the most. But hey, shit happens in football sometimes. Also let's get this out of the way because I know this is going to rear its ugly head: Namplays Mendy and N'Golo Kante aren't the same player just because they're athletic, around the same size, black and played in France. Kante is one of the best counter attacking initiators in the world from the central midfield position, and Mendy isn't that. Back in his days at Caen, this ability was present and he landed on the perfect PL team to showcase that trait to a larger audience. Now that we've got that settled; I do like Mendy. He's talented and was part of a terrific midfield at Nice that was probably the best non PSG midfield trio in France helping them overachieve last season, but he's not Kante. He's a different player and profiles much more like a traditional defensive midfielder with very intriguing passing range. Also he played on a Nice side that was diametrically opposite to Leicester. When he or another of their midfield three won the ball, it meant restarting their possession actions more times than not. So it remains to be seen just how good a fit he'd be for Ranieri if they stick to being a counter attacking side, although he did have him at Monaco a few years back. Ahmed Musa? I don't know. I mean 12 goals and 5 assists is fine production  and getting that this season would be good value for his transfer fee but Russian PL players haven't had the greatest track record of success in the PL so it's fair to be skeptical of him being a success. Bartosz Kapustka had a solid tournament and at his reported fee, he's a sensible gamble considering respected judges are high on him as a player. I don't know how feasible this would've been and he's still working his way back from an ACL tear, but I would've loved to seen Leicester take a run at Nabil Fekir. Readers will know how much I loved Fekir and although he profiles more as a second striker or number 10, he could've been a fantastic gamble at Leicester. Who knows how much Lyon would've demanded for his services although finishing as well as they did without him might've helped with his price. Again though, he did have a major knee injury and it still needs to be proven that he's gotten back to 100% and have that burst to his game again. But in the event of a Mahrez sale, he would be one of the best bets to replicate his production. Having said all that, this is still a pretty thin squad and they have to deal with European football as well. The PL doesn't have the greatest reputation for tactical diversity or match day game planning for opponents, but with the quality of coaches at the top you have to believe that Leicester won't be afforded the same opportunities to turn games into track meets. This will mean a probable adjustment in terms of style of play, which will lead further credence to the "tinkerman" label that Claudio Ranieri has garnered, but getting this team to contend for a top 4 spot again would require some of the finest coaching we've seen from a PL manager in years. Conclusion I think it's pretty safe to say that Leicester won't win the PL title and their odds for getting back to the top four again are also not great. Bookies have generally given Leicester the 7th best odds of qualifying for the CL, way below the likes of Tottenham or Liverpool. Though they're no longer the 5000-1 underdogs, still being in the region of 28/1 to win the title is steep odds. With European football to deal with and a tougher league to navigate, not as many breaks will be afforded to them as last year. Between their over performance plus legitimate skepticism with the likes of Vardy and even Mahrez replicating similar seasons, there's just so many variables going against them that finishing in the top 4 again would alone be just about as remarkable an achievement as winning the title last year. Having said all that, Leicester on a player trading aspect have done well to consolidate their standing as possibly the best of the rest in the league. To this point they've kept two of the core trio that drove them to the title. Mendy is a solid buy at his price even though he's not Kante, perhaps Musa bucks the trend of Russian PL imports and he turns out to be a good buy at his price too. If Mahrez stays for another season, then it becomes a bit more feasible to suggest that they can still contend for a Europa League spot. The seeds are there for the club to join Southampton and the likes as solid mid table clubs who can punch a little bit above their weight, which while nowhere near as exciting as winning the league, is still a perfectly fine niche to live within. Leicester finishing as most project them to finish at around 7-9th place would still be a fantastic season and it shouldn't be looked down upon just because they found the pot of gold previously. Prediction 7th-9th, but hey, Champions League football at the King Power Stadium! ___________________________________   Check out our other previews here

Leicester might have entered 2015-16 as the most unlikely contenders for the league but few sages had too much hope for Tottenham’s chances of contending either. A flattering 5th place finish in 2014-15 had left Pochettino able to reflect positively, but masked obvious deficiencies in the team, namely a porous midfield and generous defence. Usual fan concerns involved transfers, with the slow realisation that Harry Kane would be left to fend for himself up front and the traditional balancing of the books, at least superficially on fees. But the key impact of the deals of the summer of 2015 was squad refinement and a move towards defining a first team. In years gone by Tottenham have all too often lacked squad harmony and carried talented players on high wages, that may or may not have participated in team affairs. The cancellation of Emmanuel Adebayor’s contract represented a new way, and a farewell to disruption. Pochettino’s second year started with his players, his method and it worked. Third place and a Champions League position were a fine reward for some scintillating play, but there was also the nagging feeling that this was the year a team could sneak up on the rails and pinch a title, and so they did. But it wasn’t Tottenham. So how are they fixed for 2016-17? Can Tottenham repeat last season’s energy, flair and dominance? Transfers, stability and aging together Tottenham’s first team is arguably the easiest to name in the league. Lloris, Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose, Dier, Dembele, Lamela, Alli, Eriksen, Kane It took time for this XI to bed down but from roughly the turn of the year, the only real choice was whether to fit Heung-Min Son in somewhere or given the demands Pochettino places on them, to rotate the odd full back or not. So while the old adage about continuing to improve when at your strongest could be called into play, it was more a case for Tottenham to extend the squad depth, which they’ve done. Victor Wanyama arrives as a league adjusted, Pochettino veteran, Dier alternative and immediately combats the problem of rotating Tom Carroll or Ryan Mason into central midfield, with Nabil Bentaleb seemingly to be discarded, for reasons unknown. Also encouraging is the purchase of Vincent Janssen, fresh from lighting up the Dutch league in the back end of 2015-16. He’s young, has had to battle to succeed in his career, has a solid on field work ethic and knows how to score goals. If you were casting “The Harry Kane Story” for a Dutch market, he’d be a shoo in for the part. Five shots per game and 27 goals is sufficiently high to defer suspicion around the effectiveness of the Dutch league as a primer for the Premier League, and Tottenham have had a lot of success buying from there with Christian Eriksen, Nacer Chadli and Jan Vertonghen all following a similar path. Metrics No team took more shots during the 2015-16 Premier League season than Tottenham. This fed into no team managing more shots on target either. Expected goals measures were slightly less enamoured with Tottenham’s attack, but still had them top three in and around Manchester City but behind Arsenal. This was a reflection of the high volume of shots Tottenham took from outside the box, with Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane particularly prone to launch from range. Indeed though their shot volume was exceptional the locations were less impressive with an average shot distance of 19.8 metres ranking 19th and a general centrality measure ranking them dead last. This throws up a conundrum, because Tottenham’s attack was varied and shots arrived from all over, but is the exact opposite to what we would deem as shooting efficiency--shots from as close in and central as possible. A kind of mixed strategy is likely best, but the simple conceit that significantly outshooting your opponent will bear fruit still holds. And they did. In defence Tottenham ranked fourth for shots against and first for on target shots against. And at this end of the pitch expected goals concurred. This improvement from the previous year was nothing short of remarkable. Tottenham’s 2014-15 defence was genuinely shaky, of teams playing in the big five European leagues from 2010-11 onwards, Tottenham allowed non-penalty shots from nearer than any other team (17.0 metres, sample of 588) and were fortunate to concede as few as they did. For 2015-16 this distance measure jumped forward by around a metre and a half into the realms of an average distance and for the most part, Tottenham played on the front foot and generally faced few problems. They also went from conceding 25 shots and five goals from opposition throughballs in 2014-15 to six shots and two goals in the whole of 2015-16. Organisation counts and with Toby Alderweireld a high class signing and Eric Dier miraculously transitioning from occasional centre back or right back cover into Tottenham and England’s first choice defensive midfielder, defence became stout and reliable. Creation One of the great mysteries of 2014-15 was how Christian Eriksen finished with two assists from 84 key passes. To undershoot by such a margin was a genuine freak and some reversion was likely through 2015-16. That took place significantly and he ended the 2015-16 with 13 assists from 115 key passes, a rate far more commensurate with the level of creation: Of course being on corners and having a near post routine involving Eric Dier and/or Toby Alderweireld helps, but it was good to see those numbers pick up and land at an irrefutably elite level. Erik Lamela probably has more hipster fan goodwill than any player in the squad but has evolved into an extremely solid performer. Many had written him off due to his propensity to try and make things happen and not infrequent failure, but in 2015-16 we saw a lot more of the good stuff, not least in his work rate--his tackle rate is behind only a resurgent Mousa Dembele in the squad-- but also a propensity for a well timed pass, all nine throughballs he completed finished with a shot, of which four resulted in goals: This ability to pick the ball up wide, dribble infield and look for a decisive pass is unique in the squad and the ability to find that final pass from the edge of the box is a gift that shows his talent. There's still time for him to blow up and match his early hype. The 15 goal Roma season may be in the distant past, but he has evolved into a classy creator with a combative edge. The one potential longer term downside to both Lamela and Eriksen in their contract status. Both have two years left and chairman Daniel Levy rarely allows his playing assets to get down to a year. Eriksen is thought to be in contract talks but both players need to be signed up and quickly, they both turn 25 this season and there is a need to ensure that they both spend their peak years at the club, and if that can't happen, they leave for fees that reflect their quality. And of course Dele Alli broke through continuing Tottenham's fine recent lineage in providing the some of the league's most exciting young players. Kyle Walker, Gareth Bale and Harry Kane all preceded his Young Player of the Year award and it's been an encouraging trend. Top four or more? It’s hard to imagine that anyone working down at White Hart Lane, or at least what remains of it, expecting Tottenham to do anything less than challenge similarly to last year. The wider perception is less positive, with a presumption that with heavyweight coaching appointments, Manchester United and Chelsea will merrily bounce their way back up to the top four. As I wrote, this is a competitive battle for these places this year and focus will need to be maintained throughout to repeat the success of last year. The major asset of this Tottenham side is it's relative youth. To have been able to put up such strong numbers while fielding such a young team bodes extremely well. Lloris, Vertonghen and Dembele are 29 though playing in positions that mean that age may not wither them as quickly as elsewhere, otherwise the core of this team is 23 to 27: Rose, Walker, Alderweireld, Eriksen, Lamela, Son, Kane, Dier is 22 and Alli 20. They all have their peak years ahead of them. The team was blessed with a lack of injuries in 2015-16 with the one major loss, that of Jan Vertonghen inmid season, happily covered more than adequately by Kevin Wimmer. Dembele starts the season with a ban and has suffered with niggling injuries for years, but Pochettino showed he could effectively rotate his team with Europa League fixtures alongside the league. We are yet to know how the Champions League will be prioritised, and whether he feels he can rotate as effectively as he did for the Europa League but as suggested the two major signings, Wanyama and Janssen offer vital depth for such a problem. Mentality will be interesting as at times during 2015-16 it felt as though Pochettino had brainwashed his team with a "we can win" attitude. Even when mathematics were the only friend towards Tottenham's title hopes, and the rational fan was left just with a light dose of hope, it was noticeable that the team remained positive and focused. That focus dissipated immediately after the title was beyond reach and it is to be hoped that Pochettino will find a way to reset the mental stability of his squad. A title challenge can be wearing, and they should realise what they achieved was ahead of expectation; by achieving Champions League qualification, their original hope and aim was sated. The team drew too many games last year (13) and found it easy to dominate but hard to kill teams off, if they are to realise further top four aspirations, they need to find an added ruthlessness in the final third. Again here is an example of where Janssen is an upgrade: he's an upgrade on nothing and if benched behind Kane early on will find plenty of substitute minutes with a simple remit ringing in his ears. Tottenham showed more than enough during 2015-16 to show that they can pitch hard for the upper tier in the league and there is little to suggest that they cannot find themselves there again. Whether they will find they are a 70 point team again and argue out a Champions League spot or improve to being an 80 point team and look at the title is tough to work out, but if we work through the opening weeks of the season and Tottenham are putting up the same numbers they did last year, then it will be brave to presume that they won't keep it up all year.   _________________________________ Check out our other previews here

In a league that holds intrigue at every turn, Manchester United’s prospects are at least as enticing as any other. After three post Ferguson seasons of wild spending but dull football, they’ve finally thrown their keys in the middle of the table, disrobed and invited everyone to join them in the master bedroom.

• Celebrity rent-a-quote manager? Check
• Celebrity rent-a-quote iconic forward? Check
• Prime age creative talent? Check

They get the message. You’re the biggest club in the world? Then you need to get noticed, you need visible stars and you need people to talk about you. Suddenly we look like we might have a touch more fun on the red side of Manchester, even allowing for Jose Mourinho’s propensity to turn big games into mud, and the tough question to answer is whether this play for attention has enough structure beneath it to elicit sufficiently good results. No Champions League was likely the decisive factor that finally did for Louis van Gaal, and a trudge into the Europa League feels as though it will be low on Jose Mourinho’s priority list, especially since he has never featured in the tournament in its modern guise and hasn’t had a team play in it since his Porto team won the then UEFA Cup back in 2002-03. But if he’s sharp about the future, he’ll realise that the Europa League holds a useful purpose as a placeholder for a desired return to the Champions League in 2017-18. Battling on multiple fronts is the default setting for a mega-club, and easing away from that, even to heavily prioritise the league, could send the out wrong message and undermine his overall ethos. His return to Chelsea is informative here. In 2013-14 he had problems up front with a misfiring Fernando Torres and Demba Ba, yet managed to haul Chelsea late into the title race. Only his prioritisation of a Champions League campaign contributing to some dismal defeats to smaller teams at key moments, kept that team from following the twin attacking forces of that season’s Man City and Liverpool sides right down to the wire. He extracted the maximum from that team quickly and of course built further with the signings of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa to win the 2014-15 title, but also had a solid base to begin with. Whether Manchester United are so blessed is an arguable point and to consider them as anywhere near the quality of that Chelsea team only becomes possible if we rate their transfer business highly. Transfers Zlatan Ibrahimovic is an obvious starting point and poses a fascinating question having come off the most prolific season of his career, a 50 goal blitz in his last year at Paris Saint Germain. Averaging over five shots a game during 2015-16 is at the high end of his career rate--he’s consistently been a four shot a game man for years--and understandably at that volume, his expected goal rate was high, over 0.9 per game, enough to rank him in the top three in Europe’s big five leagues. But he’s 35 in October. PSG coasted through their league last year, and that’s not a luxury Manchester United will be able to enjoy, so can Zlatan keep pace? Or will he need to be rotated regularly? And he certainly isn’t a long term solution. It’s a fun signing but backed with big questions about suitability and workload. Another player with a mega output last year but with less obvious downside is Henrikh Mkhitaryan. At 27 he’s landing right on his prime years and off the back of 11 goals and 15 assists for Borussia Dortmund last year has the potential to be a game changing signing. With an expected goal rate of around 0.3 per 90 (from 2.6 shots per game), and an expected assist rate of over 0.4 per 90 (from 2.8 key passes), his 2015-16 season was about as good as you get for a non-striker. He arrives as an elite talent and likely creative hub and is a welcome addition to the league. Any question mark around him could be that he thrived so much under Thomas Tuchel that previous seasons look notably lesser. Will Mourinho empower him in the same way? Here's his chances created over the last three seasons, an added focus on set pieces in 2015-16 but also a big rise in volume and the target location is much improved:

red=assist

Eric Bailly arrives as an expensive centre back option and we’re left with the “will he/won’t he” Paul Pogba saga as the last piece of Mourinho’s jigsaw. If Bastian Schweinsteiger’s days are indeed numbered, then reinforcements here are vital, regardless of whether it’s Pogba or not. Genuine elite talent has been thin on the ground at United in recent seasons. Rooney certainly had it, but has old legs. David de Gea is a world class keeper and there are bags of potential in both Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial, but beyond that, United have been an expensive but underwhelming unit for some years. Metrics It’s hard to distinguish whether van Gaal’s methods squeezed the maximum return from a moderate squad or that his attacking handbrake unnecessarily capped their potential. The team profiled like a top four side across a number of metrics:

• Shots against: 3rd
• Shots on target against: 2nd
• Possession: 1st
• Pass% For and Pass % against: 3rd

All of these metrics describe the style as much as anything else. Lots of safe possession, and limiting the opposition's chances. Their raw conversions ranked highly too, ranked top four or five, so they both limited opposition shots (solid, repeatable) and somehow stopped the ones that got through (variable, non-repeatable).  This is where the "good base to work from" idea takes shape, because van Gaal got it about three quarters right. It's just sadly for him, the cost for the success of this method came in the format of a lack of thrills, shots and goals:

• Shots for: 15th
• Shots on target for: 12th
• Expected goals For: 11th
• Mean xG per shot: 10th

There isn't a magic formula for Manchester United hidden among their shot quality, the volume was poor, and the type of chances they created were largely moderate. And you don't need stats to tell you that lumping it up to Fellaini is a strategy that doesn't sell tickets. But this is where all the remedial work needs to be done. Mourinho clearly knows this hence the Zlatan and Mkhitaryan signings, two guys coming off super hot goal output and creation seasons, but they need to stay fit and function instantly. Transfers are a mixed bag, and they don't always work, so the message needs to get through to the rest of the squad too. In the past he has pared back his squad, used a small core and it's come with a cost. In 2013-14, Chelsea tired, in 2014-15 their results stayed fine but they were limping over the line with a necessary defence first outlook starkly different to early season vigour. His major current flaw seems to be not understanding how much he needs to rotate to keep a team fresh going into the business end of the season. It's also important not to forget that United have suffered a severe injury crisis in each of the last two seasons. Does Mourinho have the wherewithal to stop that happening again? It's hard to say, but if it's the same institutional problem that has consistently skewered Arsenal's higher ambition for years, it will need attention regardless. Title, top four or bust? Last year the bookmakers pegged Manchester United as fourth favourites for the title, this year with a little Mourinho sauce and a side of Zlatan fever they have them bumped up to second favourite, only a shade behind Manchester City. On paper this seems absurd. While their absolute first team looks superior to last time round, is it too soon to presume there is enough in the squad as a whole to launch them forward sufficiently to genuinely contend? They were 15 points off the pace in 2015-16, and although there is potential for a few teams in this league to bounce into wildly different positions, it’s optimistic to think that United are poised to make up that gap, especially given that it’s Mourinho’s first season. There are ideas around that posit that a van Gaal tenure is akin to a good curry base, and a coach that follows him can benefit by stirring in the meat. With Mourinho having fashioned at least some of his methods under the tutelage of his former boss, virtues of organisation, discipline, the team ethic and repetitive task learning have already been instilled. Mourinho won’t shy away from those, but still has to maintain and build a prosperous attack, without letting the defensive end slide but the class in this side isn’t in among its defensive personnel. Any slight sop towards attack could potentially expose a weakness there and Mourinho has a tricky job to attain balance. Maybe Rooney or Depay or Martial drop out early on and Marouane Fellaini or Ashley Young are favoured in workhorse roles? It won’t thrill fans if they see attacking talent benched but at least while he gets his team settled and organised, it could well be stoicism first and flair later. What of Rashford? Are there enough minutes to go round for Mourinho to empower the various young talents he has in his squad? Beyond Leicester, who were on another planet as far as season on season improvement goes, the two teams in recent years to bounce forward from United’s 2015-16 level and contend for the title are Manchester City in 2011-12 and Tottenham last year. City bought top class talent to bridge the gap, while Tottenham benefited from stability, defensive reinforcement and something of a positive skew. But both teams shared the benefit of a manager in their second season; a full pre-season, methods already learned and a bedding in period long since passed. Mourinho does not have that luxury, yet the lofty aim will be the same. He needs to find 15 or more points from somewhere, for unless he is contending for the title, his own high standards and historical record will deem him to be underperforming. Should he miss the top four it will be a failure. The league is ever harder. Any of six to ten teams have at least light designs on the Champions League positions, and they can’t all prevail. No room for error, Jose. ______________________________   Check out our other previews here

Welcome to the StatsBomb Previews 2016. As per usual, we have a variety of contributors pitching in to foretell the forthcoming season, with the top clubs in the Premier League covered and we will extend into the Bundesliga and Serie A as their seasons kick off. Starting this weekend, we will bring you a quality series of sharp content, embracing the statistical angles that other sources simply don't cover. To whet the appetite, I’ve had a ponder at a simple question. There are six teams that from a boardroom perspective will have a strong intention to finish in the top four, and among them we see Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, who all finished outside last season.

I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen in the EPL this year.

— Ragnar Klavan Fan (@ElstonGunn_) 13 July 2016

Hard to predict The new Premier League season is teed up to be the most fascinating that we have seen in some years. Top tier coaches such as Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte have joined the league at huge money clubs Manchester City and Chelsea. Manchester United have gone full soap opera by signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic and hiring Jose Mourinho. Jurgen Klopp finds himself at Liverpool with a new contract, a full pre-season and a transfer window to install personnel and strategy, while at Tottenham, Mauricio Pochettino is into year three of a project that vaulted past rational year two expectations and Arsene Wenger is on year 21 with Arsenal and guaranteed to be in there pitching. That’s six clubs, huge expectation and investment; these teams expect to contend, expect to win. And we haven’t even mentioned last season’s champions Leicester City, or surprise European contenders West Ham, or consistent Southampton. That’s now nine teams set fair to do battle. Surely Everton can right the ship under Ronald Koeman and bounce back up the table? And Stoke City under Mark Hughes are usually fairly solid. Eleven teams! Finishing in the top half now seems like an ambitious target for the rest. “But anyone can win, Leicester did” Well, you go and bet those outcomes then, the bookmakers are happily fielding a multitude of “just in case” bets right this moment, and it will add great ballast to their books. So contenders: we have six and a half. Leicester get a half there because if football had seedings, they would get a (1) after their name but really it’s six teams. That’s it. Now what this opening ramble is leading towards is a simple truth. The bare minimum requirement for any of these six teams is a top four finish. All else is failure. And six into four does not go. Two of these managers will definitely fail to hit their target. But who? Manchester City City might be ageing all over but they’ve a couple of strong aspects in their favour. Last season’s underlying numbers were pretty good. They came unstuck primarily due to a perfunctory away record, a miserable conversion skew when tied and it seems reasonable to presume that Pellegrini’s imminent departure did not have a positive effect. The results looked unsatisfactory and they limped to 4th, but underneath all that, they were still projecting to be a solid top four team. Now, they’re a year older, but some very good things have happened:

1. Pep Guardiola has arrived
2. That’s enough really

I can’t see them out of the top four, hell, I can’t see them out of the top two. Solid basic metrics + Guardiola + talent = go close. Title odds ~5/2 FAV Arsenal If we pull apart expected goals, we find some fascinating truths about Arsenal. The 2015-16 side might have had a finishing slump, but the method was extremely sound. They took the closest shots in the league and limited the opposition to the furthest shots. It looked like that was a strategic plan, and if it was they got it right. Sadly, typical injury issues, the finishing slump and a spluttering mid season meant the end result was all too familiar. Now they’ve finally signed an option in central midfield in Granit Xhaka and may well buy again. They look strong, and should be in the mix. There is little to suggest they will regress from last year to a lesser mean, and they could well actually contend, injuries, as ever permitting. I can’t see them outside the top four either. Title odds ~6/1 Manchester United Van Gaal’s shot shy but defensively robust Manchester United is in transition, and can’t afford a misstep. They are now Jose Mourinho’s defensively robust Manchester United and have added in 80+ goals worth of 2015-16 output in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan and maybe Paul Pogba too. It’s a balancing act to maintain the defensive soundness while allowing the team to create but since van Gaal only missed out on the top four by goal difference, it’s surely possible that Mourinho can eke out a couple of extra wins to insert his team in there.  More seems a reach and would require a significant step forward. Bad attacking metrics plus good defensive metrics minus Louis van Gaal plus Jose Mourinho. Top four seems a reasonably likely outcome doesn’t it? Title odds ~3/1 Chelsea Mourinho malaise followed by a half season holiday isn’t perhaps the ideal preparation for a new title bid and the intensity needs to return to Stamford Bridge quickly. They have the right man for that job in Antonio Conte and the signing of N’Golo Kante seems to flag his intent clearly. Some of their processes around possession and areas in which they controlled the ball mapped like a top four team last year, but their defense was porous and their forwards broadly quiet. Again this is a team that needs a huge step forward, and it has the talent and no European competition, but still the title seems a stretch. Not to all though. The Racing Post interviewed 13 bookmakers representatives in their preview and seven picked Chelsea for the title. They will be harder to beat this year, but will need players like Eden Hazard to fly if they are to land in the top four. Title odds ~11/2 Tottenham If Tottenham perform as they did last season they are a lock for the top four and maybe more. Top shooters in the league and alongside Man City and Arsenal in a clear top three for expected goals, the team is still young, is settled and growing together. The Champions League is a new distraction but after endless years of Europa League, the squad is well used to the demands of Europe. The main problem could be the successes of others, as not everyone can fail as badly as last year, and as we’ve discussed not everyone can finish top four but there’s little in their metrics to suggest that they will fall hard, for all that their on target shot rate was ludicrously high, their conversions weren’t special at all, so it’s a little yin and yang. They will surely be in the mix. Tile odds ~8/1 Liverpool Liverpool probably have the biggest chasm to traverse, but with a full Klopp pre-season, some selected players that may suit his systems and some pretty solid top four contending metrics last time round, they have a reasonable shout of improving into the mix. If they can just discard their propensity for randomised results, incorporate some defensive protection into their high pressing method and keep Daniel Sturridge fit, they are still going to win a lot of games. Not much to ask is it? Title odds ~8/1 Six into four still doesn’t go. I’m prepared to reduce it to four into two and give Arsenal and Man City a bye into the top four. Neither has failed to qualify in the last six seasons, and there is nothing to suggest that they will be weaker this year. Beyond that it’s a tricky conundrum; Chelsea and Manchester United have brought in arguably the two most suitable managers for the task, Tottenham have stability and a progressive profile and Liverpool are better set than a year ago. Arguably the only two managers of these six teams who could survive failing to land in the top four this year are Klopp and Pochettino, providing that their general accomplishments continue to point in the right direction. Liverpool have spent very few seasons in the Champions League positions in recent years, 2013-14 apart, and Klopp is likely to be allowed to keep building regardless of whether he makes it this time and Pochettino helms a team that has finished 5th enough times to understand that as long as the process is sound, they will continue to be contenders and occasionally have seasons that allow them to truly contend. The others have pressure. Arsenal fans have teetered on the edge of Wenger support for many years now, with aspects surrounding his stoicism in the transfer market and a lack of big silverware creating frustration. A 5th or worse place could bring that to fever pitch and might make it hard for him to survive. Mourinho arrives with the brash arrogance of a winner, and failure to qualify for top four would surely mean that his methods had been stymied somewhere along the line and it would be hard for him to sell it as progress. Conte is likely to have top four as a minimum expectation, and any Chelsea manager outside those comforts is liable to removal while similar to Mourinho, Guardiola's reputation is so high that to fail here would mean something had gone seriously awry. Six into four doesn't go but for at least two of Guardiola, Conte, Mourinho, Pochettino, Klopp and Wenger, the summer of 2017 is either going to be very relaxing or full of explanations and pressure. Who will it be though? I wish I knew... _________________________________________ Check out our other previews here